


Crisis

by the_ragnarok



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Dubious Consent, Fuck Or Die, Hospital Sex, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 16:36:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8453743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_ragnarok/pseuds/the_ragnarok
Summary: Crisis heats are triggered under such incredible physical or mental duress that the body throws everything it has in an effort to reach another human being. If Reese burns the last of his reserves on a futile, unmet heat, he may well die shortly after.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to Code16 who got me to rethink some plot elements.

There are moments when time seems to slow down, and the timespan between Harold bumping his wheelchair into an alpha at the hospital and said alpha turning around to face him is one of them.

Harold has time to think, _That is John Reese_ , and to feel the attendant desperate pang: John Reese loved Jessica Arndt, whom Harold failed to save.

Harold has time to feel his heart rate pick up, incongruously, and at the same time feel his limbs go pliant, muscles growing lax, and to realize what this means.

Harold has time to see Reese's stance stiffen, and to smell the change from calm everyday scent to the sudden furious need of an alpha in heat.

Nobody, of course, would blame Reese for going into crisis heat. It's hardly his fault. At the same time, neither is this heat - or the distress that triggered it - Harold's fault. At least, nobody but Harold knows enough to think so. If Harold musters his will now and refuses to answer the heat, his body and Reese's would revert to normal.

At what cost, though? Crisis heats are triggered under such incredible physical or mental duress that the body throws everything it has in an effort to reach another human being. If Reese burns the last of his reserves on a futile, unmet heat, he may well die shortly after.

Of course, the insensibility that heat is sure to bring means Reese might well not take as much care with Harold as would be desirable. It's unlikely that Harold will be in pain, the heat will see to that: but Harold is injured, and neither he nor Reese will be in a state to notice that said injuries aren't aggravated. All Harold can do is hope that he won't emerge from this with an even worse disability than he was going to have anyway.

Harold sighs, silently, and allows heat to spread tendrils through his limp limbs.

Then Reese turns around, and slowed-down time comes screaming back to full speed, hitting Harold like the shockwave from an explosion.

Reese marches on Harold like a predator closing in on his prey. He spots a nearby nurse and growls at her.

"Heat rooms are that way," the nurse says, gesturing down the corridor. She spares Harold one concerned look before moving aside. She must assume he and Reese are mated, or at least have some kind of arrangement.

There's nothing Harold can do now. His body has gone completely limp. Even if he changed his mind, he couldn't struggle. Just as well, given that Reese could easily have overpowered him even before his injuries.

Reese picks Harold up bodily, and Harold discovers that despite his inability to move, he _can_ emit a small, distressed sound when Reese holds him in a way that places dangerous tension on his wounded spine.

At the sound, Reese freezes. Only for a fraction of a second: then he smoothly re-positions Harold, even as he strides towards the heat rooms, Harold firmly in his grasp.

Relief drives a sigh out of Harold, and there's a subtle shift in pressure against his skin: Reese's arms, tightening a tiny bit around him.

The door to the heat room open. Harold tries, and fails, to brace himself for being thrown down on the bed, or on the floor.

Just as well, since Reese keeps holding him until they reach the bed, then carefully lays Harold down on it, running long fingers over Harold's limbs as if testing that the position is comfortable.

The mattress is soft under Harold's back, but solid, supportive. Harold's body feels like it has gone liquid in ready acceptance of whatever Reese wants - needs - to do to him.

Reese shows much less care for Harold's clothing than for Harold's person. He produces a terrifyingly sharp blade, Harold has no idea where from, getting Harold's clothes off with speed and precision. He doesn't nick Harold once.

Hope is a dangerous thing. Reese seems almost lucid in his actions: surely nobody could be too gone on heat and still showing such care. Even if Harold can't talk, perhaps he can communicate.

Of course, what good would that do? Harold chose to help this man with his heat as the least evil in an unfortunate situation. Asking Reese now to reconsider would be moral cowardice, and useless besides.

Reese takes off his own clothes, and the wash of alpha scent scatters Harold's thoughts. Why is he objecting, in any case? Reese's skin looks warm, his muscles shifting subtly under it as Harold watches him, transfixed.

Harold was expecting Reese to either bend him in half or turn him over to lie face down. Instead Reese carefully pushes Harold's legs apart, shoulders between them, and licks where Harold's sudden need is most urgent.

It's just as well that Harold can't speak: he can't think what he'd say to this, a stranger enthusiastically mouthing sensitive, private parts, getting them wet with saliva and Harold's own emissions.

The downside of this is that Harold is vocal. Very much so, and not at all in a dignified way. He can't even consider the noises he makes particularly appealing: they sound bewildered to him, undignified, squeaks rather than moans.

Reese is undeterred by this: if anything, he seems emboldened, pressing harder the louder Harold sounds, until Harold's voice breaks into gasps and hiccups and he's climaxing, shuddering and clenching and feeling very empty. If Harold could speak, he'd beg.

As it turns out, he doesn't need to. Reese slides two fingers into him, long and competent, driving more surprised sounds out of Harold's mouth. Reese's dark eyes flicker up at him, and for a mad moment Harold thinks of kissing him. At least it would muffle Harold slightly.

Reese doesn't kiss him. He rubs another orgasm out of Harold with those terrifyingly expert hands, then detaches himself from Harold.

To Harold's mortification, he keens as Reese breaks contact. Reese glances at him again, then brings his hands to his mouth, licking them clean. Then he places said hands on Harold's hips, putting hardly any weight on Harold at all.

Then he drives into Harold, who completely loses capacity for abstract thought.

God above. Harold has not had many heats, even fewer partnered. He doesn't know if it's a particular property of crisis heat, or that Reese is simply that good. Reese moves like a dream inside him and if Harold could move he'd throw his arms and legs around Reese, his own spine be damned, he would moan and beg without shame and rise up to meet Reese's thrusts. As he is, Harold can only accept what Reese gives him.

Reese gives him everything.

When Reese finally stills, Harold snaps back into himself. The scent of antiseptic around them, the rough texture of the sheets come into his awareness. Above him, Reese is breathing hard, sweat shining on his abdominal muscles, his back bowed over Harold. Reese's eyes are glazed, unseeing, and Harold feels Reese's knot begin to swell.

The panic that spasms through Harold is brief, inevitable. He has no idea what being knotted, in his present state, will do to his still-healing body. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps irreversible damage. He has no way of knowing. He has allowed for that risk, yes, when he chose to accommodate Reese. Still, Harold is only human.

Reese, on the other hand, may well be superhuman, since in the last moment before his knot swells, he pulls out. He grunts as he does, his expression pained; then he buries his face in Harold's throat, sobbing as he spatters his release over Harold's stomach.

The first part of Harold's body that is under his control isn't his face, or his voice. It's his hand, which drifts to settle on the back of John's neck, offering awkward, unwanted comfort that is all he has to give presently.

They stay like that for a moment. Then a knock comes to the door, and Reese visibly rises to his senses. He shrinks away from Harold, looking very blank, and leaves the room. Harold hears yells in the hall, and winces.

Reese is gone well before Harold is mobile again.

~~

John wakes up with his wrist handcuffed to the hotel bed. In the next room, there is anguished screaming.

The cuffs are off before he can think. He smashes into the next room to find a recording and the well-dressed man who asked to employ him. In another moment, John has the man pinned to the wall, and he opens his mouth and is hit by a pure wall of physical memory.

Flesh under his, yielding completely. A body scarred, not young, but wholly given over to John and his need, opening, only making the barest complaint when John hurt him. The excruciating pain of pulling away; unbearable, but he'd borne it anyway

Finch blinks at him, startled but unafraid. The kind of person who'll respond to a stranger's crisis heat when already physically compromised. "I hoped you wouldn't make the connection," he tells John ruefully. "I would rather this doesn't affect your choice."

"Are you kidding me?" John says, incredulous. The recorder is still playing out sounds of suffering.

Finch wilts in his grasp. It's too much like his pliancy during heat, and John lets go, unnerved. "I would go to great lengths to convince you to work with me," Finch says. "Emotional blackmail over a compromised state that I chose to put myself into isn't one of them."

"Some choice," John mutters.

"The choice to save an innocent life," Finch says, "or walk away." His shrug is an awkward thing, and John wonders with a sickening pit in his stomach if the stiffness of Finch's form, his odd gait, are John's own doing, damage inflicted while John was out of his mind.

Into the following silence, Finch says, "That came out wrong. I made a choice, and while I can't help but hope you'll want to make the same one, coercing you to do so will be not just morally wrong but counterproductive. I want you to choose this work because you want it, not because of some ridiculous imagined debt."

 _Ridiculous_. The word feels bitter when John mouths it. He gestures at Finch abruptly. "Is this-- was there long term damage?"

Finch hesitates. Then his mouth sets. "I'm afraid there's no way of knowing. I was already injured when heat began; as far as I could tell, no further damage was inflicted," another shrug, "but the doctors gave no certain indication. I could have recovered much better, or much worse: a lot of this is chance." When John doesn't answer, Finch softly adds, "I promised I wouldn't lie, Mr. Reese. I trust you didn't expect the truth to be pretty, or simple."

Abruptly, John says, "Fine. Make it worth my while, then. If I work for you, what do I get?"

"A purpose," Finch says, patiently. "As well as all the resources you'll need, at your disposal. What else would you like?"

John draws closer once more, intentionally predatory. "Forget all that." He pitches his voice low. "I'm an alpha. You know what we like."

Finch looks extremely unimpressed. "I don't deal in human flesh, Mr. Reese, and I don't believe for a minute you are holding out for," he gestures, "company--"

With a smooth motion, John has Finch pinned against the wall once more. John's heart hammers. He tastes metal. "Your mission is saving lives, you say. You've been willing to use your own body for the mission, before. Why not do that again?"

He remembers the scent of Finch's fear, a memory that embedded itself in John's mind ages back. Finch stubbornly refuses to smell of it now. Instead his eyes are on John's face, confused. Then it clears. "If you can't stand to work with me," Finch says, and John can take anything but the pity in his voice, "if the memories are... unpleasant... of course I wouldn't think less of you."

For a blinding second, John can think of nothing but kissing Finch to shut him up. He hadn't kissed Finch when they had... when they last met. He remembers the taste of Finch's body, but not his mouth. 

John takes a step back. "I'll do it," he says, hoarse. "I'll work for you."

Finch's expression softens. "Thank you," he says, but it's John who's grateful, because it means he doesn't have to keep feeling the squirmy horror-hope that Finch would actually accept the terms John asked for.


End file.
